What to Do and Be When I Grow Up?
Caveat: I will be sharing my story from my perspective. I realize that some of you may have been disappointed or even deeply hurt by my actions. If this is the case for you, I truly seek your forgiveness and would encourage you to reach out to a professional therapist to process those issues. If you and your therapist think it would be helpful, I would be willing to make personal amends.
This is perhaps the hardest blog for me to write. Mostly because I have gone through so much darkness—still going through it in some ways—but there’s always hope for healing. However, the darkness complicated my desire to move forward.
So first let me describe the darkness. When I was sent to rehab on November 10, 2018, I felt utterly lost. By that, I mean I felt disconnected from my identity in every role or context of my life. I even felt disconnected from myself and God. While I was in rehab I confessed to my wife that I had been sexually unfaithful to her (the four rehab drugs I was taking did not help my sensitivity). While I had been faithful to her for over 35 years, this confession was traumatic for her and those she told. (My wife understandably confided in my board of directors at Vineyard Church.) I had a panic attack (which I’d never had before) and they put me on suicide watch for a couple of days in rehab (even though I told them I was not suicidal). What I shared with my wife in private on approximately November 13, 2018 was on the front page of the Kansas City Star by December 6, 2018 before I could process privately with my family and friends. At the end of a 30-day rehab, I was sent to a second 90-day rehab. I wanted to return to Kansas City and face the harsh realities of my sinful behavior. During the 90-day rehab, I was not allowed to call my wife. Two things happened while I was in rehab that changed my life forever: (1) my wife filed for divorce in February 2019, and (2) my board of directors called for my resignation.
Needless to say, when I got home February 28, 2019 I was angry, hurt, embarrassed, and humiliated. I was primarily angry at myself. I was angry at God. I was angry at people whom I felt betrayed me in certain ways (a personal feeling statement). I was not blind to the irony: the one who had betrayed others felt betrayed. But the anger was off the charts, and here’s the difficult thing, anger was never an acceptable emotion for me. I always suppressed, avoided, or ignored anger. I don’t like anger and resentment or shame and guilt, but I was drowning in these negative emotions.
Once I got back to Kansas City I wanted to leave in shame and embarrassment, but I felt like I was supposed to stay largely because of family and friends. In 2019, I resigned as the pastor of the church I founded and labored over for 28 years. Due to a series of bad choices, I lost my marriage of 37 years, my vocation of 42 years, my community, and my faith. I am so thankful my mom and dad, my sisters and brother-in-law’s, my nephews and nieces stuck with me. I wanted to run like Jonah. I did in a way. I worked for a medical marijuana startup company in Missouri. I raised investment capital and learned much about the business of marijuana. Emotionally, I felt like an atheist. If god existed, I was angry as hell at him/her/it. I was like a wounded animal. I tried church. I tried counseling. I tried recovery groups. I just couldn’t connect. I honestly didn’t let anybody in too deeply (not wise). It was too dark, even for me. I had always sporadically journaled, but in this state journaling was a constant companion through which I poured out my unedited feelings. Here is a quote from my journal:
I’m in a free-fall. A deconstruction of Fred. WTF. Who am I? I’m clueless. What am I to do with my life? I have felt so depressed today.
So lost in myself. So frustrated with my new story. Rohr quotes Paula D’Arcy: ‘God comes to you disguised as your life.’ This really sucks.
For me. For most people. Necessary suffering. It feels like such bullshit. Is god really in this story of mine? Can I trust a god like this?
How do I have faith in chaos, death, pain, even evil? Sounds like bullshit. Tastes like bullshit.
I woke up every morning hoping I was in a bad nightmare.
After my divorce was finalized in July 2019, I finally got serious about the hard work of shadowboxing. I started attending church, recovery groups, and therapy regularly. I was praying every day to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in. But I surrendered to the emptiness as though God might be found in it. I was asking for guidance and direction and hope. What do I do with my life? Nothing. Silence. Long silence. And more silence. Days and months on end. Nothing. I networked with business leaders in the city hoping something might crystalize. Nothing. Discouragement. Most of my suffering was my own fault. Self-hatred ensued and the darkness was still real, even if self-inflicted. I came across this quote from Richard Rohr in the Universal Christ:
God creates the pullback too, “hiding his face” as it was called by so many mystics and Scriptures. God creates a vacuum that God alone can fill.
Then God waits to see if we will trust our God partner to eventually fill the space in us, which now has grown even more spacious and receptive.
This is the central theme of darkness, necessary doubt, or what the mystics called “God withdrawing his love.” They knew that what feels like
suffering, depression, uselessness—moments when God has withdrawn—these moments are often deep acts of trust and invitation to intimacy
on God’s part.
Hard for me to believe. Whether or not suffering is self-inflicted or inflicted by fallen human beings or a fallen world, we still process it emotionally. I was experiencing mostly enormous darkness. The darkness engulfed me and made it challenging to move forward. I continued networking with business leaders in Kansas City but still nothing opened up. I attended an African American church (my home church for over a year), and during the month of February 2020 we celebrated black history month. We sang a song every week that brought me to tears entitled “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It’s called the “Black National Anthem.” The song speaks of the dark struggle for freedom from slavery, but it also speaks of the gospel of freedom. I was experiencing my own dark bondage and as I identified with my faith family the tears flowed as we sang:
Lift every voice and sing
‘Til earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling seas
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has brought us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on ‘till victory is won
Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast
I finally started asking, “Well, if god isn’t there or doesn’t make it clear what I am supposed to do, then how do I move forward with some sense of purpose bigger than myself?” And then something clicked. It was very subtle. I was reading a book by Parker Palmer entitled Let Your Life Speak. Palmer’s main thesis is that God speaks to us about our vocation from the depths of our life, even the dark places of our life. We need to learn to listen to our life. I had been getting in touch with my negative core emotions (fear, anger, grief, disgust) and my inhibitory emotions (shame, guilt, anxiety). So listening to my life, even the darkness, seemed like an easy task at this point.
While I was reading Let Your Life Speak, I met with a friend who was savvy with social media entrepreneurship. This was before the Coronavirus, and he gave me a challenge. He said, “Fred, just start posting content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter every day for two months and I will help you figure out how to monetize it.” He also wanted me to read a book by Gary Vaynerchuk called Crushing It. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this proposition, but I took it seriously. I completed Let Your Life Speak and started reading Crushing It. I also started rereading a favorite of mine called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. All three books were saying the same thing from different perspectives: (1) spiritual vocation perspective, (2) personal branding through social media perspective, and (3) creative content perspective. I started thinking about the kinds of things I love and the content I would like to put out on different social media platforms. After a month or so of thinking along these lines I was excited about the potential for a vocation built on the things I love and the content I could produce on social media around the things I love. Not earthshaking, but it’s the only thing that has gotten me excited. I’ve never had a plan B, and I have always been a pastor/teacher and storyteller at heart. I’ve also had some painful life experiences to which many people can relate. Maybe God is speaking to me through my life and guiding me on a new journey. As a pastor I heard how so many people struggled with a sense of calling. What is God’s will for my life? Now I understand how difficult that quest can be, especially in the dark.
However, I have some hope for the first time in a long time. I’m excited about the content I want to put out. I hope you will join me on the journey. I think you will enjoy the content I have planned so I encourage you to follow me on all the social media platforms. Thanks for your interest and prayers.
©realfredherron 2020
